Having reached their own house they stood, each with a foot on the doorstep, while Tom smoked a cigarette and Honey enlarged on his philosophy.
"I don't believe as Gord put us into this world to be right not 'arf so much as what He done it so as we'd find out for ourselves what's right and what's wrong. One right thing as yer've found out for yerself'll make yer more of a man than fifty as yer've took on trust. Look at 'em in there!" He nodded backward toward Mrs. Turtle's. "They've all took everythink on trust, and see what it's made of 'em. Whoever says, 'I'm an orthodock, and I'm goin' to live and die an orthodock,' is like the guy in the Bible as was bound 'and and foot with grave-clothes. My genius was always for thinkin' things out for meself; and look at me to-day!"
It was another discovery to Tom that Honey felt proud and happy in his accomplishment. Honey to Tom was a machine for doing heavy work. He was a drudge, and a dray-horse. He was shut out from the higher, the more spiritual activities. But here was Honey himself content, and in a measure exultant.
"Been wrong in a lot o' things I have; but I've found it out for meself. I ain't sorry for what I've did. It's learned me. There ain't a old jug I've been in, in England or the State o' New York, that didn't learn me somethink. I see now that I was wrong. But I see, too, that them as tried and sentenced me wasn't right. When they repents of the sins what their lors and gover'ments and churches has committed against this old world, I'll repent o' the sins I've committed against them."
This ability to stand alone, mentally at least, against all religion and society, was, as Tom saw it, the secret of Honey's independence. He might have been a rogue, a burglar, a convict; and yet he was a man, as the orthodocks at Mrs. Turtle's were not, and never had been, men. Having allowed themselves to be hammered into subjection by what Honey called lors, gover'ments, and churches, in subjection they had been trapped, and never could get out again. There was something about Honey that was strong and free.
XXX
To make himself strong and free was Tom Whitelaw's ruling motive through the winter which preceded his going to Harvard. He must be a man, not merely in physical vigor, but in mental independence. Convinced that he was in what he called a rotten world, a world of rotten customs built on a rotten foundation, he saw it as a task to learn to pick his way amid the rottenness. To rebel, but keep his rebellion as steam with which to drive his engine, not as something to let off in futile raging against established convictions, was a hint of Honey's by which he profited.
"It don't do yer no good to kick so as they can ketch and jump on you. I've tried that. And it ain't no good to jaw. Tried that too. If the uninherited was anythink but a bunch o' simps you might be able to rouse 'em. But they ain't. All yer can do is to shut yer mouth and live. Yer'll live harder and surer with yer mouth shut. Yer'll live truer too, just as yer'll shoot straighter when yer ain't talkin' and fidgitin' about. Don't believe what no judge or gov'nor or bishop says to yer just because he says it; but don't let 'em know as yer don't believe it, because they'll hoodoo you with their whim-whams. Awful glad they'll be, both Church and State, to ruin the man what don't believe the way they tell him to."